Sarah Austin was one of the first live streaming, life-casters popularized on Justin.TV and she is the founder of Pop17, “a collaborative blogging platform and web show that covers and tracks emerging web trends and tells the stories behind what’s going in social media.” 

Sarah and I have a SXSWi 2011 Panel Proposal with Brandon Prebynski, Joel Cheesman, Christopher Kahle and Ryan Paugh. We’d really appreciate your votes and comments at http://bit.ly/howtogetajob by August 27th, 2010.

Listen to this entire 38th episode of “The Social Nerdia Show!” with Sarah Austin on the Flash player below. You can also subscribe on iTunes, stream from your phone on Stitcher, and listen to upcoming shows LIVE on blogtalkradio. Some show highlights and quotes are below. Enjoy!

Brands on Social Media

 ”When brands become a part of the community, it really feels like the brand is like your friend. You really love them, like you would a real person. In social media, they take on attributes of people because there are personalitieis behind the brand making tweets, answering questions, customer service, and establishing relationships with people, connecting with people on their interests, and offering something back to the community.” (more…)

Web analytics are cool. If you agree with that statement, there’s a good change you’ve spent some time reading Occam’s Razor, the fascinating blog about web analytics by Avinash Kaushik (author of Web Analytics 2.0 and Web Analytics: An Hour A Day).

If you don’t know who Avinash is then just Google “Web Analytics” and you’ll surely find out who he is. I’ve personally  learnt much from his thought-provoking and action-oriented writings, and I’m sure you will too. Below is an interview about some of the hot topics in web analytics today.

1. Tools like Woopra have introduced us to real-time analytics. Is real-time the future of analytics? Why are we not there yet?

There is more and more real-time data available. Google Analytics is updated, officially, every hour. Then there are cool tools like Chartbeat, etc. My personal perspective on real time analytics is…. if you can’t take real-time action then why do you want real time data?

In 99% of the cases real-time data is not actionable (it is not statistically significant and people jump the gun on the wrong signals), and companies (big or small) can’t actually take any action even if there is an actionable signal (change campaigns, landing pages, stop emails from going out or whatever). Then why do you want the data?

Real-time data becomes an excuse to stare at computer screens or do data puking. It keeps people from doing thoughtful analysis and looking at non-tactical things (and adding value to their employer).

If your organization meets these two rules: a) You have enough traffic / responses on your site to get statistically significant data AND b) You have a capacity to change things (take action), you should seek out real time data and you should make use of it. If you don’t meet the two rules take a long hard look at if you are engaging in any activity that is adding to your company’s bottom-line when you tap into real time data.

2. In 2007, you wrote a post  about “engagement” often being an “excuse,” not a metric. Now that we can measure things like comments, Facebook likes, ReTweets, check-ins, etc., what are your thoughts about the importance of measuring engagement?

My point of view on engagement is simple: What the heck does it actually mean? The answer is? Everything to everyone. Hence my minor displeasure at that metric. I believe in clarity of communication and a razor sharp focus on solving specific problems. Hence precise measurements, and naming metrics for clarity.

Engagement means nothing, hence does not drive action. (more…)

I had the very cool opportunity to speak at this year’s SXSW Interactive as part of the Future15: Diversity series, which was organized by Glenda Bautista. The presentation, titled “The Online Latino: A New Digital Native,” was all about Latin Americans and the web. 

While it is a myth that Latin Americans are not online, only 30% of them are. The presentation went into the challenges (poverty, inequality, censorship, and the social/economic/digital divide), as well as what is changing (tech hubs, encouraging governments, businesses rolling out infrastructure, and a rapidly growing online community).

If you’re interested in learning more about what is happening online and offline in Latin America, including Streisand effects, citizen journalism, social networking, innovative start-ups, and stories about the people that are converting ideas into movements, check out the slides and videos below. Feedback (through email or comments) is appreciated

Thanks to Diego Contreras (aka Diegoliath) for helping me with the design, Jon Gipson for recording the video, and Kara Andrade for writing the original proposal with me and helping out with ideas, insights, and stats.

On the most recent “The Social Nerdia Show!” I had a conversation with  Angela Natividad and Bill Green, the podcasters behind AdVerve.

Angela’s Twitter profile tells us that she is “VP-Marketing, hypios. Ad scribe, Culture Buzz. Hostess, AdVerve. And yes, still the wholesale purveyor of The Sass™.” Bill Green blogs at MTLB (Make the Logo Bigger), a personal favorite, and  has worked with lots of great brands. You might also know them from their work with AdRants and their appearances on The BeanCast.

Listen to the entire conversation with A &B on the Flash player below. Please subscribe to us on iTunes, stream from mobiles on Stitcher, and listen to upcoming LIVE shows on blogtalkradio.

Angela and Bill told me that they started AdVerve because they wanted to take ad podcasting in a new direction, to a place where every topic is welcome. “Every topic is about advertising. Advertising surrounds everything, all of the nuances from our culture,” Angela told me. Bill added that they wanted to have a “conversational (podcast) and see where things go, the way ad agencies are, the way creatives actually talk about situations.”

While the show is quite open-ended, both of them emphasized the importance of honesty and respect. “We’re careful about what we talk about on the show. We’re honest but respectful of anything that is confidential,” Bill explained. He told me a story that reflects just how much some advertisers and marketers are still not sure what do do with bloggers and podcasters: “There was an incident on the BeanCast where one of the guests on the show was fired, even though he didn’t say anything incendiary.. It was just a very nervous employer.”

Angela and Bill met through AdRants, a blog and email newsletter that provides “marketing and advertising news with attitude,” published by Steve Hall. “I knew Angela had a style that could transform into a different form,” Bill explained. Today, AdVerve already has 15 shows and its first episode was downloaded over 2,400 times. Regarding the future of the show, Angela told me that they “do see an opportunity for AdVerve to expand.” (more…)

I believe we should all seek to do something meaningful with our lives. While paying the bills is essential, we should try to pursue something that we truly get excited about and enjoy doing on a daily basis. We should try to impact the world in a positive way, even if in a small way.

I’m personally passionate about the convergence of technology, marketing, and the social web. I feel like a huge nerd reading the sentence I just wrote, but it’s true. I like to think, learn, and talk about those three things as much as I enjoy playing sports and listening to music. It’s how I’m wired. If you’re reading this, you might be wired like that too.

So this is a short version of the story of how I went from being a social media participant to a social media content producer to a social media manager, in less than one year…

Up until two and a half weeks ago, I was a tech and business consultant. For the three years prior to that, I had been a consultant with a promising career. I had worked on challenging and interesting projects concerning innovative mobile web sites, IT cost-reductions and, my favorite, identifying social media opportunities for communications service providers.

It was going pretty good. However, my interest in social media was growing. I found myself thinking about the rapidly changing social web on a daily basis. I read blogs like TechCrunch and magazines like AdAge. I listened to podcasts like Buzz Out Loud and kept up with the latest in social media thanks to people I had started to get to know as friends (instead of followers) on Twitter.

I was fascinated by all things social on the Internet and I wanted to further explore the future of the web. I needed a creative outlet. I needed a new “home base.” (more…)

Becca Taylor is a Social Media Manager at HP’s Enterprise Business, which focuses on servers, storage, business and IT software/services, and other B2B technologies. On the 32nd episode of “The Social Nerdia Show!,” I had a conversation with Becca and she told me about her role at HP, what the company is doing in the social media world, and her thoughts on community, participation, and personal branding.

Listen to the entire conversation with Becca on the Flash player below. You can also subscribe to us on iTunes, stream from mobiles on Stitcher, and listen to upcoming shows LIVE on blogtalkradio.

HP is a very large company with over 150,000 employees. “The larger the company gets, often, the more difficult it is to really get authentic social media engagement running,” Becca explained. She added that the benefits of social media in business-to-consumer offerings is much more clear than it is in the B2B realm, but her team is helping change that within HP by identifying the value to the company and its customers.

Her team is called “The Social Media Enablement Team” and consists of 6 people with different roles and in different locations. “Our goal is to work with different teams within the division to get them up to speed on the tools, and most of all, understand from a business perspective that they need to approach social media marketing as they would approach any marketing program, with deliberation, responsibility, and objectves,” Becca said.

Becca has been with HP for 10 years. She actually started at Compaq (which was acquired by HP) doing web documentation. She then transitioned into marketing where she “focused on customer advocacy, on how to best use the internet and various tools to enhance the customer experience.”

About a year ago the Enterprise Business division created a team that focused on social media, and Becca was one of the few who joined the team. “I’m thrilled I did,” she told me, “because I love my job. It’s the best job I’ve ever had.” (more…)